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Safety failings result in £30,000 fine for maintenance company

Minshull Street Crown Court has issued fines and costs of nearly £39,000 after a worker was seriously injured in January 2015.

He suffered serious head injuries while working on a mobile elevating work platform (MEWP), which overturned.

This occurred in the process of dismantling a waste compactor on the site, located in Wilmslow, Cheshire, according to the Construction Enquirer.

The process required cladding to be removed from the frame of the compactor and the MEWP tipped over when one of these sections made contact with it.

Following the incident, the worker spent two months in hospital and has not been able to return to work.

Results from the subsequent Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation revealed a number of safety failings by Cole Mechanical Services.

These included lack of training for the company's employees in the use MEWPs or safe erection of tower scaffolding.

Additonally, no risk assessments for the work had been completed and the MEWP being used was not designed for use in external operations.

The court was also told that the HSE had found further safety failings on site in the form of operations being carried out on a fragile with no protection in place to prevent falls.

Minshull Street Crown Court fined Cole Mechanical Services, of Chesham, Buckinghamshire £30,000 with costs of £8,995 after it pleaded guilty to a breach of Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.